Specializing in traditionally prepared rice - cooked in iron cauldrons - Torafuku always has fresh gohan to complement its "home-cooked" menu. This recently opened Japanese restaurant offers a set of rice, miso soup and pickles (JY600) or the house salad of daikon, lotus roots and shiso (beefsteak plant) (JY900) that both make great healthy snacks.
By Richard Smith
It may have excellent value (¥1,000) lunch sets, but Torafuku's sake taster sets—three kinds of the potent clear stuff for a modest ¥1,000—are surely the real reason behind all those bums on seats. The sets are certainly a good way to begin or broaden your sake knowledge or just get three glasses of booze for ten bucks. Look out for the small dish of salt at the bottom of the stairs—a Shinto purification custom that perhaps accounts for the clarity of their drinks, though that might just be because they're good.
By Simeon Paterson